


Quanto basta

by harin91



Series: Italian!Joe AU [2]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018) Actor RPF
Genre: Cooking, Italian Character(s), Italian!Joe AU, M/M, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 22:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18302960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harin91/pseuds/harin91
Summary: Loved your pizza delivery fic which made me want a prompt of Mazlek baking or cooking something together?written for @joemazzello-ramimalek on Tumblr





	Quanto basta

**Author's Note:**

> **Not beta-ed, English is not my first language.**  
>  My ask box is open if you want to drop some prompts: [brightly-painted-canvas](brightly-painted-canvas.tumblr.com)
> 
> Also posted on Tumblr at: [brightly-painted-canvas](http://brightly-painted-canvas.tumblr.com/post/183796510798/loved-your-pizza-delivery-fic-which-made-me-want-a)
> 
> See at the end for more notes.

It had seemed so simple, in theory.

Joe had eaten his mamma’s risotto all his life, thoroughly enjoying it and alway believing that, when necessity called, he would be able to perfectly reproduce the dish.

What could go wrong? He had the ingredients, he had his mother’s notes on his phone (and teaching her how to send a picture of nonna’s old handwritten recipes book should have been, in his calculations, the hardest and most challenging part of the whole ordeal) and he had a reliable assistant.

The assistant was his boyfriend Rami.

Rami had never eaten or cooked risotto in his life.  
  


So when Joe had carelessly turned on the stove to heat the oil and onion for soffritto and was just about to pour the dry rice in the pan, Rami exclaimed: “Wait! When do you add water?”

“It’s called  _brodo_.” explained calmly Joe.

“Yeah, that.  _Brodo_.” said Rami, his cute American accent momentarily distracting Joe by making him swoon. “When do you add it?” repeated Rami.

“Later, I guess.” said Joe with a shrug, already sniffing the onion beginning to fry.

“How much?” asked Rami again.

“I don’t know.” replied Joe, still not having added the rice.

“And don’t, you know, need to heat it up before pouring it?” asked Rami, growing skeptic about Joe’s confidence in his own knowledge of the topic.

Joe blinked twice: “Oh yeah, maybe.”

“Should we call your mum?” asked Rami, while nibbling on a flake of parmesan cheese.

“No! C’mon I’ve got this. Let’s put a pot on the other fire…” said Joe, leaving the rice bowl on the counter to go get a pot.

“I think we should turn this off for a moment, Joe.” noticed Rami looking at the pan with the by then browned onion and oil, while Joe was preoccupied with finding the right pot.

“You can’t turn it off, it has to stay on. You can’t re-heat it later.” said Joe, starting to grow exasperated by the situation.

“It’s gonna burn.” stated Rami, moving the onions around with a spatula. He didn’t know he was allowed to do that, but Joe was distracted with the kitchen’s disorganisation and with the unsolved mystery of the disappearing pot.

“Don’t turn it off.” reprimanded his boyfriend, glancing back at him and noticing he had his right hand already on the handle: “Add the rice.” he instructed.

“Can we please call your mum and ask for advices? I don’t trust this.” whined Rami, grabbing the bowl of rice and pouring it quickly inside the pan. The white ingredient turned immediately brown after being mixed with the almost burning onions and olive oil.

“Ah-ha! Found you!” exclaimed Joe, extracting the pot from a pile inside a cupboard. He rushed back to the stove and put it next to the vase of broth his mom gave him.

He then looked at the pan and recoiled: “What the… how did it get like that so quickly!?”

“Do we even have enough ingredients to start again?” asked Rami, re-occupying his assistant position leaning on the counter.

“I have no idea…” sighed Joe, turning off the stove in surrender: “At least stop eating the cheese, we need that.” he added, noticing his boyfriend trying to sneakily steal more flakes of parmesan.  
Rami pouted.  
Joe felt immediately sorry.

“Let me ask mum.” he conceded, taking his phone out of his pocket and dialing his mom’s number.  
  


“ _Figlio._ ” (Child) said his mother as first greeting.

“ _Madre._ ” (Mother) replied Joe without missing a beat: “ _Svelami tutti i segreti del tuo risotto._ ” (Reveal to me all your risotto’s secrets).

And his mother did, giving instructions step by step, worrying for his starving son and son-in-law.  
  


“ _Va bene, grazie ma’… ti faremo sapere com’è andata._ ” (Okay, thank you, mom. We’ll let you know how it goes) said Joe as he was about to end the call.

“ _Buona serata, ragazzi. Ciao, Rami!_ ” (Have a good evening, boys. Bye, Rami!) replied his mom.

“ _Ciao, Virginia. Grazie!_ ” tried Rami shyly, with a big smile.

The call ended and they stared blankly at Joe’s phone on the counter, before turning around to asses the mess still on the stove.

“So, how much broth do we need?” asked again Rami, eyeing the pot.

“ _Quanto basta._ ” replied Joe, quoting his mother and snickering.

“And what does that mean?” asked Rami, raising an eyebrow.

“I don’t know. No one knows. Probably all Italians have asked themselves the same question at least once. If you ever find out the answer, please tell us.” said Joe, before rolling up his sleeves and getting back to work.

 

\---

 

 **Notes:**  
  
“ _quanto basta_ ” means “just enough” and it is used a lot in recipes to indicate there is no precise quantity. I start to panic every time I see it and I feel most Italians share my feelings on the topic (especially when you ask grandma for a recipe and she uses ‘quanto basta’ for about almost every ingredient’s dose!)  
  
This scene might have been inspired by my own experience in the kitchen as I was trying to reproduce my grandma’s famous risotto and had to call her to make sure I was pouring the broth in the right way… then I got better at it :)


End file.
